Is "local" sustainable?

Coming to you live this morning from Los Angeles, where the Kelsey Group's Drilling Down on Local/Marketplaces conference is happening.

As far as I can tell, these are all the folks who don't show up at journalism focused gatherings like ONA or Poynter events.

The "how do we make money on local" question that is generally the conversation ender at journalism confabs is the conversation beginner at this gathering, where the first panels are stocked with venture investors talking about what they will -- and will not fund, and what they expect to get back, and why.

Quote of the panel comes from Kara Nortman, VP of M&A at IAC: "There's going to be a lot of consolidation that will take a lot of confusion out of the market. One or two clear winners will emerge...[but looking at what we have now], it's Craigslist and the mapping companies."

I'll be blogging and tweeting throughout the day and will likely post a longer roundup essay at IdeaLab. If you want to follow the conference as it moves, try following me on Twitter, where I'm @lisawilliams.